How retail's top Christmas decorator plays Santa

Nine-in-10 national retail chains depend on the holiday season for 40% of their yearly sales. American Christmas, the company that designs, manufactures, and installs iconic Christmas displays on Fifth Avenue in New York and at super-regional malls nationwide counts on it for 100%.

But in its headquarters town of Mount Vernon, N.Y., the nonpareil creator of Yuletide wonderment in places like Rockefeller Center and The Grove in Los Angeles shows that it, too, embodies the bounteous spirit of Santa from Thanksgiving to Dec. 25.

Last year, the company owned by Innsbruck, Austria-based MK Illumination decided to transform its showroom into “Holiday Lane at American Christmas,” charging between $10 and $25 for kids and grownups to sit with Santa, take photos in front of its wondrous displays, and tour its factory filled with its magnificent artificial pine boughs and hallowed Christmas trappings such as the red ribbon that once wrapped the exterior of Cartier in Manhattan. 

Holiday Lane drew 9,000 visitors in its inaugural run and raised $81,213—all of it donated to The Mount Vernon Boys & Girls Club, the Northeast STEM Starter Academy of Mt. Vernon and the town’s Youth Community Outreach Program.

“Last year 9,000 people came to experience Holiday Lane,” said American Christmas CEO Dan Casterella. “We drew parents and kids from Connecticut and New Jersey, some of them driving in from 200 miles away. We were surprised.”

This year’s display has been expanded, studded with 100,000-plus Christmas lights and more than 100 animatronics across nine themed areas. Children are invited to mail handwritten notes to Santa at the “A Wish to the North Pole” display, Reindeer greet visitors at “Stable Express,” and “The Arctic Cave” lets them revel in an always cool and snowy winter wonderland.

“Our management team wanted to create closer ties with the local community, so we went to the Mount Vernon Mayor’s office and introduced our idea for Holiday Lane,” Casterella said. “We wanted kids to have a great experience, and we wanted all the proceeds to go to kids in the community.”